Peter Munk, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Barrick Gold Corporation, the world’s largest gold producer has died at the age of 90. He founded Barrick in 1983 and built it into the world’s largest gold mining company in less than 25 years, by leading a small team of partners who trusted one another implicitly. Today, Barrick Gold is the world’s largest producer of gold with more than 10,000 employees on 5 continents.

Peter Munk started his first business when he was still an undergraduate, hiring fellow students to sell Christmas trees outside 17 of Toronto supermarkets. In 1952, 6 years after he graduated from University of Toronto with a degree in electrical engineering, he received $3,000 from his father-in-law and co-founded Clairtone Sound Corporation. The company’s product won design award and gained endorsement from celebrities and Jazz musician. However, the business failed shortly thereafter.

In 1970, Peter moved to London and started Southern Pacific Properties, developing a 7,000-acre resort in Fiji and 54 resort chain. In 1981, he sold Southern Pacific Properties for $130 million. In 1978, he started Barrick Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration company. In 1979, he returned to Canada and renamed the company to Barrick Resources. The company went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1983, and 3 years later in 1986, he acquired Goldstrike for $62 million, shifting the business focus to gold. At the age of 86, after building Barrick Gold into the world’s largest producer of gold with more than 10,000 employees, he stepped down and handed his chairman role to John Thornton a former Goldman Sachs President.

Peter Munk was born in Budapest, the capital of Hungary in 1927. When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, he and his 13 family members escaped to Switzerland. In 1948, at the age of 20, his father sent him to live in Canada with his uncle.

He is one of Canada’s most significant philanthropists, donating nearly $300 million. In 1997, he and his wife, Melanie established the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at Toronto General Hospital. He had received numerous awards and honors, including honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, Concordia University, Bishop’s University, and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. In 2008, he was named a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honor, limited to no more than 165 living Canadians at any one time. In 2017 he was chosen to be included on the New York Stock Exchange Innovators. He has 5 children and fourteen grandchildren.

Our vision is the generation of wealth through responsible mining—wealth for our owners, our people, and the countries and communities with which we partner. Our ultimate objective is to grow our free cash flow per share over the long term. We will do so by: maintaining and growing industry-leading margins through operational excellence, Best-in-Class performance, and consistent execution; managing our portfolio and allocating capital with discipline and rigor; and leveraging our top talent and our distinctive partnership culture as a competitive advantages.

More than 75% of our gold production comes from the Americas region, including Argentina, Canada, Dominican Republic, Peru and the United States. The Company also has mining operations and projects in Australia, Chile, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, and Zambia. At the end of 2017, Barrick had proven and probable gold reserves of 64.4 million ounces1 (1.29 billion tonnes, grading 1.55 grams per tonne).

Barrick was founded in 1983 by Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Munk, and is headquartered in Toronto. The Company’s shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ABX.